In addition to a world-class Technical Program and the industry's most comprehensive Exposition, ESC offers free sessions and events throughout the week. If you can make it to San Jose in April, connect with Industry experts and find solutions to your embedded design challenges.

Celebrating 20 Years of Embedded

Keynote Address
Tuesday, April 15
10:30am - 12:00pm

2008 marks the 20th anniversary of the Embedded Systems Conference. To mark this momentous occasion, we’re planning a multimedia extravaganza Keynote Address. We’ve invited a host of industry experts/authorities/inventors/creators, as well as some of the faces you’ve come to know and love over the past 20 years of ESCs. The individuals that have agreed to participate so far include Jim Ready, creator of the first commercial RTOS; PJ Plauger, one of the original contributors to ESC and ESD magazine; Bjarne Stroustrup, the inventor/creator of the "C++" language; Paul Saffo, a renowned technology forecaster from Stanford University; Nick Tredennick, inventor of the 68000 microprocessor; and John Wharton, inventor of the 8051 microcontroller. The Master of Ceremonies for the event is none other than Jack Ganssle, respected columnist, instructor, and consultant. These special guests are in addition to the special embedded “effects” we’ve got planned for this celebration/keynote presentation, including a vintage Teardown and a few other surprises. We’ll be looking both back and ahead in time throughout the multimedia presentation.

Jack Ganssle has written over 600 articles and six books about embedded systems, as well as one about his sailing fiascos. He started developing embedded systems in the early 70s using the 8008. He's started and sold three electronics companies, including one of the bigger embedded tool businesses. Jack now gives seminars to companies world-wide about better ways to develop embedded systems.

P.J. Plauger is President of Dinkumware, Ltd., which licenses the standard-conforming C and C++ libraries and on-line documentation that he originally developed. Over the years, he has served as Senior Editor of The C/C++ Users Journal and Contributing Editor to Embedded Systems Programming. He also wrote a monthly column for both publications for more than a decade, and numerous monthly editorials for The C/C++ Users Journal. He is a writer and consultant in the field of computer programming. He has written over a dozen textbooks and hundreds of articles for a variety of periodicals. He has presented invited seminars at conferences in the United States, Europe, Australia, and Japan. He has been active in the development of international standards, most notably for the programming languages C and C++. Dr. Plauger also occasionally finds time to write science fiction.

Nick Tredennick is a Technology Analyst for Gilder Publishing. At Motorola, he designed the microprocessor that became the central processor for the original Apple Macintosh. He was once Chief Scientist at Altera. Tredennick was named a Fellow of the IEEE for contributions to microprocessor design.  He has the usual degrees from typical universities. He has been a fry cook, Air Force pilot, janitor, university professor, dishwasher, design engineer, truck driver, naval officer, oil field worker, and corporate executive. He even helped start a few companies.

Bjarne Stroustrup is the designer and original implementer of C++ and the author of "The C++ Programming Language" and The Design and Evolution of C++. His research interests include distributed systems, design, programming techniques, software development tools, and programming languages. Dr. Stroustrup is the College of Engineering Chair Professor in Computer Science at Texas A&M University, member of The National Academy of Engineering, recipient of the ACM Grace Murray Hopper award ACM fellow, IEEE Fellow and AT&T Bell Laboratories Fellow. He is actively involved in the ANSI/ISO standardization of C++.

Jim Ready is the CTO and founder of MontaVista Software. Called "arguably the one individual most responsible for establishing the embedded OS and tools market" by LinuxDevices.com, Jim developed the first viable commercial RTOS product, the VRTX real-time kernel, at Ready Systems, which he co-founded in 1980. Ready Systems merged with Microtec Research in 1993, went public in 1994, and was acquired by Mentor Graphics in 1995. During this period, Jim served as Ready Systems' president, and as CTO of Microtec/Mentor. In 1999, Jim invented the category of embedded Linux commercialization when he founded MontaVista Software.

Paul Saffo is a forecaster and essayist with over two decades experience exploring long-term technological change and its practical impact on business and society. He currently teaches at Stanford University and is a fellow of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences. He was the founding chairman of the Samsung Science Board and serves on a variety of other boards including the Long Now Foundation and the Singapore National Research Foundation Science Advisory Board. He is also an advisor to 3i Venture Capital and has served as an advisor and Forum Fellow to the World Economic Forum. He is on a research sabbatical from Institute for the Future where he has worked since 1985. Paul’s essays have appeared in numerous publications, including The Harvard Business Review, Fortune, Wired, The Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, The New York Times,and the Washington Post. Paul is also a columnist for ABCNews.com, writing on technology and innovation issues. Paul holds degrees from Harvard College, Cambridge University, and Stanford University.